Meaning Something to Someone Really Rocks
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| My two precious miracles |
It’s amazing what a little love can do for your day!
My son is four and a half. He is a type A kiddo with a huge sense for right and wrong. Sometimes I call him my little policeman. “Momma, that’s not supposed to go up there. Momma, they’re trying to drive on the road, too. Momma, yesterday you told me not to say that. Why did you say that word?” There are so many cute things he says everyday to remind me, to do the right thing. To model the right thing.
Today I received an email from the director at his daycare. She said, Simon was really missing his mommy today. He needed a little extra snuggle time, which is one of the reasons why I picked the daycare center they go to, because they are cherished there. They feel love everyday.
The director followed up and said, he wanted to send you an email, and I would have blushed ear to ear if I didn’t have olive skin.
This is the letter my son typed for me on her computer:
“J8fi,[0i =-kvt-o9,m=v-tk,\=\,=v5,3w0=,v,==v,v0,5,mk93b0-to,me-fo,v-eo,,,,,tvrtttttttttt[rdtv-,tr-vt-est,-,tvimtsmt-rmtm5trtvv0”
Then the director asked him if he felt better. He said yes.
I quickly emailed back and told the director, I had just blown him a kiss all the way from work. I asked her to see if he’d caught it.
Living Wednesday Like an Almost Monday
How many times have you really wanted something—you started off strong—kept the fire burning hot, and then a cold bucket of water poured right over the top of your head.I have changed my mind in life so many times. Always a busy person. Always moving. Fitness was a natural thing for me. I wanted to be a dietitian, until I looked six years of school in the face and realized the expense of school didn’t match with the paycheck. I wanted to be a zoologist, but discovered I had a ferocious allergy to pet dander. A landscape architect was probably my favorite career dream of the past—until my body fizzled out leaving me with nothing but a huge fever, bed rest, and a brain ache from the sleep deprivation; the gentle persuasion from those around me to figure out something else didn’t help either.
This Year I will "LIVE as though heaven is on earth."
I want to live like everyday is heaven. What would that be like to you? What what that feel like? I envision it going something like this: I wake up. I smile. I feel fresh, new and ready to live the lessons I learned from the day before. I think a day like heaven would rely on forgiveness of hurts. Philosophies of acceptance for differences. I think living life like heaven relies heavily on communication and understanding why we say the things we do. Maybe we haven’t forgiven a hurt and it keeps coming back to haunt us. In any case, I want to explore the hurts and let them go. Her words surprised me.She rarely called me out like that. I thought about it for a long time. All sorts of old memories surfaced about me moving from one hometown to another. Making Friends. Losing Friends. And all because I didn’t believe in “AND.”
I guess I’ve lived my life believing it’s not okay to disagree. If you disagree you’re too different, so let it go and step away. My best friend kept apology letters from me in her drawer for the longest time, how we’d fight over a place to eat. I wanted to win. I did, and then I felt so rotten I’d send her a 5 page letter about how sorry I was. I didn’t have to win. It’s not like we’d never go to dinner again and the next time, I could pick.
I realize now, after many hurt relationships and landing a job in corporate training where I actually taught managers how to work with people, how wrong my personal philosophy was, even though I didn’t realize how deeply I hung on to that theory.
The curriculum of Crucial Conversations opened my eyes to a whole new world of speaking and acting. I always thought I had to hide what I felt inside if someone didn’t agree. I was scared of fighting, even though in some weird way I was also a fighter.
This is the year I want to define ME. I want to live each day with what matters most to me. And in order to do that, I have to search my soul. I know I’m a wife, a mother, a friend, a coworker, a daughter a sister, an aunt and so many other things, but deep down, I want to tease the “me” apart so I can be better in the rest of my roles.
Life happens so fast, you blink and you don’t realize you’ve left behind the things that brought joy to you. I want to recreate those joys. Getting married, having two babies, working and living day-to-day can make you forget some of the important things inside your own heart.
2012 was a difficult year on many levels in almost all the roles in my life. I think I’m ready for 2013. I’ve got a flashlight and I’ll shine my way through. I’ll explore the “AND” in all things and all relationships, the power of forgiveness, and what life could be like if every single day I reminded myself of the power of both. That’s what I think would help me LIVE everyday just a little bit closer to heaven. So I’ll set it as my dream this year and I’ll keep you posted on how I do.
Look up. Brighten Your Day With A Smile.
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| http://www.workisnotajob.com |
I went to the gym today. I taught my usual Saturday morning Yoga class. Afterwards, I walked around listening to my music, trying to figure out what I wanted to do next when I caught a stranger’s gaze, and I smiled.
I jumped on a couple of different cardio machines and in between my interval training, I saw another couple of strangers, and I smiled. Then I thought about how awesome it made me feel.
Many days I do some of the same things. I go to some of the same places and I have to admit, I don’t always take the time to smile. I get stuck in my own little world. I think about my day. The hurts. The blessings. I travel to my next destination, whether it be the bathroom at work, the break room, or the next machine at the gym with my mind wrapped around some sort of thought.
So why am I writing about smiles today? Because like this morning, I realized how good it feels to spread one. I liked thinking about someone else for a moment and letting my mind go perfectly quiet. Maybe you’ll get a smile back. Maybe someone hasn’t been smiled at all day and yours is the first. In any case, it brightened my morning. It inspired me enough to wonder about someone else’s life in the moment, and then I remembered, how fortunate I am to be exactly where I am right now.
A couple of fun quotes that made me smile in seconds:
Smile. Have you ever noticed how easily puppies make human friends? Yet all they do is wag their tails and fall over. ~Walter Anderson
Smiling is infectious,
You can catch it like the flu.
Someone smiled at me today,
And I started smiling too.
~Anonymous
Cloud Nine Girl 